by Henry VIII loses a pub quiz over a geography question and discovers his team has not forgiven him
I once settled matters of state through direct personal authority, no appeal permitted. My pub quiz team overruled me on a geography question and has not let it go for three weeks.
The Team
I joined a quiz team assembled by regulars at my local, named, at my insistence, The Six Wives, a title the rest of the team accepted with visible discomfort that has never fully faded. Our captain, a woman named Sandra who works in payroll, runs the team with an authority I recognise and respect, largely because it closely resembles my own former approach to governing.
The Question
The disputed question asked which country has the longest coastline in the world. I answered England immediately and with total confidence, on the basis that in my own lifetime England’s coastline was, functionally, the only one that mattered. Sandra overruled me before I had even finished speaking and wrote Canada, a country I am reliably informed did not exist as such during my own reign, and therefore one I feel I cannot be reasonably expected to have anticipated.
The Argument
Canada was correct. England was not among the top twenty. I have annulled marriages with less pushback than Sandra gave me over that single line on the answer sheet, and I want it on the record that I accepted the correction with considerably more grace than I once accepted correction from the Pope, which is to say I accepted it eventually, and only after several minutes of visible sulking.
The Tiebreaker
The match came down to a tiebreaker question asking for the exact year of a specific naval battle, and the team, entirely without irony, turned to me and asked if I happened to know it personally, having lived through the relevant period. I did know it. I answered correctly, unassisted, to genuine applause from three other tables, and Sandra told me afterward that this was the first time all year I had contributed anything of measurable value to the team, a compliment delivered with the same warmth she generally reserves for correcting my geography.
The Standings
We finished second, beaten by a team calling themselves Quiztopher Nolan by a margin of two points, the exact two points I lost us on the coastline question. Sandra has mentioned this at every quiz since. I once ruled a nation for thirty eight years and am now remembered, weekly, in a pub in Walthamstow, chiefly for getting Canada wrong. History, it turns out, has a sense of humour, and apparently so does Sandra.
The Rematch
We have already booked our seats for next week’s rematch against Quiztopher Nolan, and Sandra has assigned me specifically to the history and geography rounds only, banning me, gently but firmly, from answering anything involving film, television, or music released after 1980, categories she considers, not unreasonably, outside my competence. I have accepted the restriction with more grace than I once showed any advisor who dared limit my authority, mostly because I genuinely cannot name a single film from 1980.
Sandra remains unconvinced by most of my trivia contributions, much like the reception Henry VIII, Secretly a Musician got on first publication. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: Harlan Coben being formally ordered to stop writing, the full field guide to London’s own grifts, the full eyewitness account of how I came back in the first place.
